Thorn's new voice

Hi there! Just played the demo of Bone 2, and it looks really great! It feels much "bigger" than the first one, just from the dialogue alone! Great stuff!

I do have one little complaint, though, and that's Thorn's new voice; she sounds FAR too young! Also, the actress who's playing her doesn't hit the right stresses and speaks way too fast compared to the rest of the actors.

It's a bit of a shame. Although it jars, thankfully it doesn't spoil the the game - it's still great fun!

I understand that you wanted to make Thorn sound more "naive" at this point in the adventure, but I think it was a little too much. Thorn has always been sort of "sexy" in the comics (remember the "nude bathing" that shocks Phone Bone so much?). I always imagined her to be around 17; naive about the world, but strong willed. But now she sounds about 12!

I wonder if this change was made under pressure from Jeff Smith? If so, I think that while he's a genius for writing Bone and Rose in the first place, you should perhaps stick to your guns. If he had nothing to do with it, then please consider changing the actress again!

Otherwise fantastic stuff! The voices for Bone and his brothers were absolutely perfect, same goes for our two favourite rat creatures - wonderful!

Thanks a lot for another great adventure (I noticed the subtle Monkey Island reference in the demo: I guess we know who came up with that joke in MI1 now! )

- Johnny

People like you and your constrictive morality are the reason Fone Bone will end up being brutalised and denigrated in some filthy prison cell, only to be harassed and hounded to the end of his days by your good self and your ilk upon his eventual release. You disgust me. I for one welcome Telltale's inclusive, nonjudgemental approach to designing adventures.

People like you and your constrictive morality are the reason Fone Bone will end up being brutalised and denigrated in some filthy prison cell, only to be harassed and hounded to the end of his days by your good self and your ilk upon his eventual release. You disgust me. I for one welcome Telltale's inclusive, nonjudgemental approach to designing adventures.

Lol! ) Of course, YOU'RE the one who's judging, because we don't know how old Fone Bone is!

[Emily]

Here's a comment Heather made about Thorn during last week's developer's chat at Adventure Gamers:

Thorn is a really interesting character, both because of how she is presented in the comic (visually) and because of the transformations she undergoes.

She is supposed to be a youngish to mid teen. At this point in the story, she is pretty innocent and going through that awkward teenage phase. Keep an eye on her though....

Here's a comment Heather made about Thorn during last week's developer's chat at Adventure Gamers:

Hmmm. It seems completely unnecessary to tie Thorn to a particular age, especially one so young, when everyone assumes she's supposed to be older. Sher certainly acts like a 17 year old who's never had much conflict in their life, which seemed pretty perfect to me.

Plus, there's the fact that it's just so jarring to get used to one voice, only to have it change for apparently no reason.

Telltale generally seems to have trouble with human characters.
I find it very weird.. the bones, the dragon, the rat creatures.. all very nicely animated and voiced while so to speak all the humans in Bone ep. 1&2 are pretty bad in both animation and voicing.
It's really weird and I really hope this is something they will try to improve for Bone ep.3 and perhaps re-release the first two with better human voice acting and animations.

I'm currently replaying Bone 1 and it's not as bad as I remember except for those terrible humans. Except for that, it's good enough for a first episode.. at least now when the price is reduced.

Edit - in episode 2, the voice acting for the humans is better, but Thorns voice is still not good.. it seems Telltale has trouble doing female voices for some reason.

I thought the humans in The Great Cow Race were all, at the very worst, good; Lucius in particular I thought was brilliantly animated and modelled, I loved the modelling and texturing of the negative guy in the bar, and Thorn had her moments with animation too. I can see your point with human characters in Out from Boneville though (it'd be great if it were updated to have a better animated Thorn.) I also thought the voice seemed a bit off in Out from Boneville, but was perfect in The Great Cow Race, though I haven't yet read the comics. I still think Fone Bone needs to be recast with a James Mason soundalike though.

Yes I agree it was improved in episode 2, but I still don't think the humans are on par with the other characters.
The honey salesman for instance.. I didn't particularly like that model.

[Emily]

Yes I agree it was improved in episode 2, but I still don't think the humans are on par with the other characters.
The honey salesman for instance.. I didn't particularly like that model.

Really? He was my favorite.

I thought the character and the voice were spot on. He was actually pretty cute, for a cartoon! )

Oh hehe
Well for some reason I think he looks.. weird.

But the models are much better in episode 2.
You have to agree though, Emily, that the model for Thorn in episode 1 is not very good?

[Emily]

Oh, I agree. I think the second iteration of the Thorn model is much closer to the comic (and a lot less scary looking!)

And I agree that the Thorn model in episode 2 is definately better

In the first version I couldn't help thinking she'd had overdone her plastic surgery hehe

Things are only getting better and this gives me big hopes for episode 3 - hopefully this one will be harder too as even new people to the genre should be used to this kind of gameplay by the third episode, don't you think? I want that difficulty level meter on the game page MAXED OUT (and then some)

[Johnny Walker]

Can't say I've ever noticed a problem with the models, they've always looked pretty good to me!

Thorn's new voice still is preventing me from playing the games, though. I tried to play again... but it's still terrible. I don't know if it's because I used to be married to an actress, or what, but the girl you got to play the new Thorn simply cannot act (at least in voice-over work with your current director). The line readings are awful. Simply and completely, awful.

I don't want to make the actress responsible feel bad, the people involved with casting and direction should be able to do their jobs better... or just hire someone who can do a good job with the amount of time and direction that the budget allows (which I imagine wasn't much for these "Director's Cuts"). It is odd that the standards should fall so low, though, because the rest of the voice acting seems fine, great even!

Thorn's poor acting is especially noticeable when contrasted against the other good voice actors. I've never had any serious issues with any of the other actor's used by TellTale, most of them are superb, nor can I think of a recent game where poor voice acting irked me so much (standards are quite high these days), but Thorn's lines are, almost comically, read too fast. She sounds like she's nervously 'spitting' them out, and without any proper inflection or emotion either.

It's such a shame that you guys felt the need to recast the voice, with, I imagine, a lot less money.

[Jake]

You should have waited 16 days to the one year anniversary before making that post.

Money wasn't the reason. You're just very much in the minority on Thorn's new voice actor.

[Mel]

It took me a while to get into Thorn's voice. It wasn't the acting though. She has a very young voice. It's a little girl voice, which when coupled with her 'blossoming' appearance really didn't mesh well for me at first. But as I got to know her (and having her character explained to me), I got used to her.

Honestly, after hearing voice work in some other games that I thought had poor delivery, I didn't feel like Thorn's voice work was bad at all.

[Armakuni]

I don't think it's very good, worst voice acting in the series for me. Many of the other voices are great though.

[tyciol]

Thorn was also raised in a very rural environment, knowing mainly her grandmother and talking to small animals. Her voice would naturally take on a very softspoken and childish sort of tone. Anyone who owns pets would get this.

This aside, there's really nothing implying that thorn is as old as 17 in the comics. She doesn't have a very mature appearance, and could easily only be beginning puberty.

As for the whole 'sexy' thing, that's probably just reader fanserve I don't think Fone (not Phone... Phone can confuse that though I guess) Bone was surprised as much as we would be, because the Bone people generally go without clothes, as Thorn points out to him. Sure, some where it in a 'Disney' sort of fashion, with gloves, a hat, a shirt, but rarely a full ensemble.

I'm also not sure that Thorn was nude in the bathing scene there. If you'll recall, it shows her removing her signature brown cloak, but underneath there is some sort of black jumper. While it shows her brown cloak and Fone Bone's gloves by the riverbank, it does not show her black shirt. So I think it is left up to the reader's imagination (as was the obvious intent) what was going on there. She may have kept it on, or she may have put it on part of the riverbank unshown or hung on a treebranch or whatever.

What was a lot cooler was the hot spring intro

[Johnny Walker]

Originally Posted by Jake

You should have waited 16 days to the one year anniversary before making that post.

Should I have started a new post to express my recent feelings upon playing the game again?

Originally Posted by Jake

You're just very much in the minority on Thorn's new voice actor.

I'm sorry, but when did you become omnipotent?

This isn't about taste, she is technically awful. Being "young" has nothing to do with it, for example (although it does bother me that Thorn is being portrayed so young, that's not what I'm talking about).

[Vampiress459]

To Thunderpeel2001(Your second reply on this thingy): that's a good point!*sigh*I suppose that we'll never know if Fone Bone is to young for Thorn.(All I know is that they've gone through frst grade)